


Walking on Knives

by To_Each_His_Own



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, M/M, Slight spoilers for Captain America: Civil War, Stucky - Freeform, garbage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6938836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/To_Each_His_Own/pseuds/To_Each_His_Own
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With each step that brought him closer to their apartment where he knew Steve would be waiting up with a steely expression and judging eyes, Bucky felt like he was walking on knives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking on Knives

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [如履刀刃](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065544) by [abbabccd05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbabccd05/pseuds/abbabccd05)



Steve couldn't remember when it started. He couldn't remember when Bucky's smile started making his pathetically weak heart beat even more erratically in his chest. He couldn't remember when each accidental brush of their hands started sending tiny goosebumps dancing along his skin. He couldn't remember when watching Bucky flirt playfully with all the beautiful dames Steve could never get, when they would giggle and blush, then coyfully push him away and call him fresh, when that started putting his heart in a vice and caused a dull ache to radiate through his chest. He couldn't remember  when his days started turning into waking nightmares. When all he yearned to do was reach out and touch Bucky. To gently hold his face and kiss those soft, plump lips. But instead, all he could do was longingly stare from a distance. Hating Bucky and hating the way he made Steve feel.  He couldn't remember when Bucky started going off and staying the night with his gals, leaving him alone on a street corner with a wink and a promise that he'd see him later. When he'd have to make that long, lonely walk home, and each step that brought him closer to his cold, empty apartment felt like walking on knives. 

* * *

 

Bucky remembered a lot of things. He remembered the day he met Steve, all small and sickly, looking all of a hundred pounds soaking wet. He remembered how the idiot swung at some kid nearly three times his size when he saw him teasing some poor soul in the schoolyard. He remembered seeing the kid swing back and his fist connecting with Steve's jaw. He went out like a light. And Bucky remember absolutely snapping his cap, pulling the kid off Steve, and really laying into him. He didn't remember much after that. But he did remember calming down and seeing Steve's blue eyes giving him the utmost look of adoration, and the tiny smile on his lips. Bucky remembered smiling back. 

Bucky remembered the first girl he ever kissed. Liza Tate was the name. It was the summer after sixth grade. Bucky, Steve, and Liza had gone into town to see the new picture showing at the theater. She was all done up in a real cute dress and a blue scarf he remembered was the exact same shade as Steve's eyes. And with her cherry red lips and curled lashes she looked pretty as a picture. And in the middle of that dark theater he kissed her. And he kissed her again on her stoop after he'd walked her home, him being the gentlemanly type, of course. He remembered the guilt bubbling in the pit of his stomach, gnawing at him, as he turned around and saw the hurt blooming across Steve's face that he was so desperately trying to hide. Bucky never took Liza out again. 

He remembered the day he realized he was in love with Steve. They were seventeen. It was one of those hot, sticky summers where the air was stifling and thick around them and nothing could relieve the discomfort. They were stretched across their shared bed, being too poor to afford a second one on account of the whole orphan thing. Bucky was shirtless and the other was in a thin, sleeveless top. Steve turned to look over at him with those gorgeous blue eyes, a bead of sweat quickly making its way down his nose,  and he smiled. Bucky didn't know what had caused it so suddenly, maybe he had gone sick in the head from the heat, but his heart leapt through his throat and into his mouth. And he realized he wanted Steve in every possible sense of the word. He wanted to touch him, more than  just brushing his hands as covertly as possible. Bucky wanted to hold his thin body against his at night, and feel his bony elbows poking into his ribs and his soft blond hair brushing against his chin. He wanted to kiss him silly at the top of the Empire State Building, and right in the middle of that Jewish deli that had the pastrami Steve loved but they could never afford. He wanted to kiss him on their way home from another awful day at school after Steve had been pushed into a locker and had angry purple bruises blooming across his shoulders. He wanted to undress him and press feather light kisses against those marks to take away the pain, then make love to him, thrusting slowly into him to drive him mad, then when Steve couldn't take it anymore and was begging, let lose and bring him right over the edge, muffling Steve's soft pants and keens with his own mouth so the neighbors wouldn't hear. He wanted to love Steve and have Steve love him in return. But that could never happened.

That night he went out and bedded the first pretty dame with blonde hair and blue eyes that was willing. He had to steal away in the middle of the night before her husband got home from his job at the mill. And with each step that brought him closer to their apartment where he knew Steve would be waiting up with a steely expression and judging eyes, Bucky felt like he was walking on knives. 

* * *

 

Steve tried not to remember the day Bucky died. He tried not to remember the hopelessness he felt watching Bucky fall, how Steve's world was ending right in front of his eyes, but there was nothing he could do. He tried not to remember how the love of his life slipped right through his fingers. There was no saving Bucky. There was no way he could have survived the fall. He was gone. And Steve hated himself. He'd just gotten his best friend back from the clutches of his abductors, and it was happening all over again. But this time there was nothing he could do. There wouldn't be a daring rescue, no sweet reunion. Nothing. Now, because of him, Bucky was dead. And a piece of Steve died with him. He was a failure. Captain America was a lie. 

He tried not to remember plunging into that cold, dark ice. The cold surrounded him and numbed his body. His mind started to go fuzzy. This was it. The end of the line. Steve had tried his hardest to live up to the symbol they'd made of him. He tried so damn hard. But ultimately it was for nothing. He couldn't save Bucky, and he couldn't save the world. He tried not to remember. And then he didn't. 

* * *

 

The Winter Soldier couldn't remember. There was nothing _to_  remember. His mind was a blank canvas, only existing to be molded and shaped by the ones who handled him. But sometimes flashes slipped through. Blond hair reflecting light in a small, dreary apartment. The brush of thin fingers against larger ones. Shared smiles. A name. Steve. Sometimes these came back and a familiar feeling flooded him. He'd smile. They didn't like that. They sent him back into the freezer. They poked and prodded and scrambled the remaining bits of what was left of his broken mind. They took away what he so desperately tried to cling to. And then

Longing. Furnace. Rusted.  Seventeen. Freight car. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. Rusted. 

He didn't remember anymore. The Soldier was ready to comply. 

The target kept saying that name. Bucky. _Bucky?_  Who was that? It felt so right hearing him say it, but so wrong for The Soldier to dare utter it himself. It wasn't him. But still, it brought back those flashes. He was smarter this time, though. He could fight it. He wasn't going back into the freezer. He would comply. 

He was staring to remember again now that he was behaving and They weren't scrambling his mind. The flashes were coming so frequently, and with them feelings. Things he'd never felt before, but somehow felt like they were a piece of him that was missing. He wasn't starting to remember, but he felt that maybe soon he would. Maybe he'd be something more than the cold, empty shell his handlers had created. Maybe he could be Bucky. Maybe that's why he pulled the Target out of the water. The Soldier knew he should have left him to drown. But those flashes. They meant something, and maybe he'd be the key to figuring it out. Maybe he could figure out why he felt like he knew this man. Why he just felt...right every time he looked at him. Like he was home.

Maybe he'd find the reason why ever time he walked away from the Target he was overcome by a painful, familiar feeling. Like walking on knives. 

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first ever Stucky fic and honestly it's kind of garbage. It just didn't turn out how I thought it would and I'm kind of disappointed in it, but damn it. I wrote it and I'm going to post it lol. Not like anyone's going to read it.


End file.
